Have a good sleep tonight, my darling... by Ni Zain

Many people underestimate the need of sleep for children and adults. Almost 80% of the worlds population is NOT sleeping enough. Means 80% of the population is NOT building up their immune system enough to be resisted against most sicknesses in this world.

Sleeping is for adults and for children one of the most important fact to keep healthy, besides food. For children, who are still growing - we don't want to forget that we only grow when we sleeping! - sleeping is one of the most important issues in their life.

How much sleep do we actually need?

Babies - as much as they can. This can be between 18 and 20 hours. I know about sleepy newborn babies who only woke up to feed and bath and the rest of the day nap away.

Children - 2 - 6 years around 12 - 14 hours at least

Children - 7 - 12 years around 10 hours

Children over 12 years and Adults - around 7 - 9 hours

Sadly most of the children under 6 years today get less than 8 hours. Over 4 years, children should sleep only in the night and no more naps in the afternoon. If children over 4 years have afternoon naps, they tent to not sleep early in the evening. For children it is very important to sleep latest around 20h. If they have to get up early for school even as early as 19h. NO child should be awake after 22h anymore. Sleep between 22h and midnight is the most important sleep and shall not be missed on a regular base, as it can have a major impact on health and our ability to learn, concentrate and focus for children and adults. So no surprise that most children today have learning and behavior problems in school, as they sleep far too little and most adults are scattered and overly tired.

Constant sleeping deficiency can lead to serious health conditions, as one runs on Adrenalins (the stress hormone) for most of their live. You might be surprised that many children are born already with a sort of burn-out-syndrom, as their mothers sleep too little and work too much during their pregnancy. Babies are taking over this serious conditions from their mothers and already develop sleeping problems. Children who are hyper-active and hard to get too sleep are weather getting to many sweats and white carbohydrates or simply sleep to late and too little.

Knowing this, it is surprising that many doctors never focus on sleeping deficiency when diagnosing children with condition such as ADD or other behavior problems. Simple getting a child sleeping more can fix the problem within a week, but it takes time and passions of parents and doctors to go for it. It's it so much easier to just drop a pill in your child's mouth?

Sleeping envoirment:

Not just how much we sleeping is important, no also how does our sleeping envoirment look like? Number one disturbance for a good sleep is radiation from TV towers, WIFI, hand phones or electric. Just briefly we resolved a simple problem of a household having the WIFI switched on all the time. A short talk to the father resolved the problem in minutes. The WIFI is turned of all the time and will be only running once someone goes online to download mails etc. So, they did not have to remove the WIFI, they just using it more clever and everybody in the family is happy.

Having your hand phone next to your bed is not really what you should do. For children this could be a dramatic situation, as children with the thin scull absorb radiation in their brains more than 10 times more than adults. Radiation is more of a problem than many of you might think. Please read also my article about energy if you more interested in this subject. So get the hand phone off for the night or leave it somewhere far away from your bedroom and your child's bedroom.

Any electric device can cause a problem in your child's or your sleeping pattern. So out with them as far as you can. In my entire house I have only one thing running during the night - the fridge, and it is at least 3 walls away and allow electricity on. It runs only on 22Watt! No light to disturb my sleep - unfortunately I got a garment factory next door which has their neon light on full blast all night. Mad - as they using electricity for nothing and polluting several houses next to them with light during the night. Light can be a pollution too... - I got a little batteries alarm clock next to my bed and that's it. So no electricity is running around my house in the night and sleep is fantastic and refreshing.

Toxic gases from paint, furniture and mattresses can also cause sleeping problems. Choosing natural materials and keeping things simple will help to avoid this attack on our health.

Where should my baby sleep?

This is the question where most people get fussy about. I am strongly on the side that children should sleep with their parents. For me to imagine that these little souls wake up in the middle of the night, alone and need to scream on top of their lungs to get love and affection, is too much. If you sleep with your child, they tent to calm down in seconds if you just take their little foot in your hand. Or if they can touch you. For me a lot of the missing love in this world is related to children who have to sleep alone from the minute they are born. Additional it would not give me single quite minute sleep if my child is far way from me and I would not be there if she needs me. No way! The argument of you could roll on your child is simply not true, as you have your instincts not to do so. Children who found their dead like this had parents taking drugs, using sleeping pills and are heavily overweight - non of what you are if you are a well taking parent for your child....

If your child wakes up during the night:

It means something is not okay with your child. Many children spent up to two hours awake in the night. In Chinese medicine this indicates a serious health problem. Each hour of the night is related to a different problem. So that you or your child wake up during the night means some health issue is on the way and you better sort it out before it gets a real problem.

Bed weeding and thoothgrinding are signs of fear in your child. Bed weeding is often related to the mother, where tooth grinding is more a general fear. There are several remedies which can help to resolve the problem within several days.

What can I do to get my child sleeping better?

First of all, slow down the activities of your child 1 hour before sleeping. Make sure your child has burned enough energy during the day, so it will be not keep on running.

During pregnancy make sure you get a good sleeping habit. Children tent to go for the sleeping pattern their moms had during the pregnancy. I noticed, that my child was waking up each night at 22:00h for several minutes, but would calm down very fast. When I thought about it, it was very clear why. My normal sleeping time is around 22:00h, so at 21:30h I would get up from whatever I did, reading a book, working on the pc or other activity and get ready for sleeping. This sudden activity woke my baby up while still in the womb, so once out she still keep this habit. Now after many work done of her sleeping she is hardly waking up anymore, but would have a quite light sleep around 22h.

Don't give your child any sweats later than 17h, but fruits are okay. Start to build up a certain frame to go sleeping. Lets say once it gets dark it is time to get tooth brushed. If it is dark outside it is sleeping time. Read a book as a little reward. Stay with your child until it sleeps, so it will feel save and sound. In the beginning all this is a bit hard to start, but if you manage to get your child sleeping each day between 5-10 minutes earlier, it will adjust with out a problem.

If you got several children of different ages in your home, make sure the smaller ones really go sleeping earlier and don't use an excuse for they won't. There are families show actually manage to get their children sleeping early. Additional you got a big more time alone with your partner each day and this might be really good for your marriage.... If you now come with the argument, that if you put your child sleeping early you won't see it a lot, than I have to tell you: Time to make a change in your life! Why you got a child, if you can see it only in the evening? And does your child have to "suffer & adjust" because of your life style???

Okay, parents out there. Time to go to bed and have a good rest. Sleep over my words and tomorrow you start the change...

Good night! - Ni Zain

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